Franklin Reyes, The Associated PressA woman waits for customers at a souvenir store in Havana, Cuba. The Obama administration will allow cash remittances from the U.S. to be delivered in Cuba's convertible peso, a change that will help recipients a 10 percent surcharge applied by the Cuban government.

The change, adopted by the Treasury Department, will let recipients in Cuba avoid the 10 percent charge the Cuban government imposes to exchange dollars to a convertible peso. Until now, the Treasury Department had mandated that payouts be made in U.S. dollars.

The new policy means more of the money Americans are sending to the island will end up in the pockets of the Cuban people and less in the government's. That's significant. Remittances to Cuba from all countries reportedly surpassed $1 billion in 2010, with about 80 percent sent in the form of cash.

This is not the Obama administration's first step toward easing restrictions on Cuba. In 2009 the administration made it easier for Cuban-Americans to visit Cuba and to send money there. Then earlier this year the administration approved a visit by the American Ballet Theatre -- the company's first performance in Havana in a half century -- as part of a reported effort to increase educational and cultural trips to the island.

These are positive moves, but they are baby steps compared to the real shift needed in U.S. policy: ending the economic embargo against Cuba.

This newspaper has maintained that the ultimate goal of U.S. policy toward Cuba should be clear. The Cuban government must end the oppression of its citizens and give them a significant say in their government by freeing political prisoners, allowing freedom of expression and of the press and holding free, multi-party elections.

But the decades-long embargo has done nothing or very little to advance those goals. Instead, it has greatly aggravated the poverty of the Cuban people and limited the United States' power to bring about democratic change in Cuba.

For decades, our country has had a strong relationship and trade with the oppressive regime in China as a way to democratize that nation and give the Chinese people more freedom. Such work-from-within strategy has been employed in Vietnam and other repressive nations as well. The United States has even normalized relations with Libya, once a sponsor of terrorism that had targets in its capital bombed by U.S. jets in 1986.

The administration of former President Clinton eased restrictions for travel and commerce with Cuba. But under pressure from some members of the Cuban exile community in Florida, President George W. Bush tightened restrictions again. Even many Cuban-Americans, however, have come to realize that the embargo no longer makes sense.

President Obama, who won Florida in 2008, has moved in the right direction by easing restrictions. But the president and Congress should move to end the embargo altogether. That would ease the hardships faced by the Cuban people -- and that's the right thing to do.